On a Long Island waterfront, a pilot flying overhead was forced to make an abrupt emergency landing, causing panic and terror to beachgoers below, this past Wednesday evening, according to reports.
A 60-year-old pilot was flying an American model Cessna 152 over Cedar Beach in Mount Sinai’s Suffolk County, located on the north-east side of the Long Island peninsula in New York, when his single-engine aircraft suffered sudden engine failure, forcing him to land as fast as possible. Luckily for the pilot, he was right above Cedar Beach, which was free of traffic and buildings. Sitting beside the pilot was a 59-year-old woman, as the Cessna 152 is only a two-seater aircraft.
Multiple counts of cell phone video footage from beach attendees below captured the Cessna plane flying at extremely low altitudes before the plane landed at the shoreline. Seconds later, the video footage captures the Cessna nosediving into the sand, causing the aircraft to completely flip over. The incident all took place around 7:30 PM this Wednesday, which luckily for beachgoers, isn’t a popular time for crowds this time of the year.
The 60-year-old pilot and his 59-year-old passenger miraculously stepped out of the plane completely unscathed, but surely shaken up from the incident. Emergency response teams arrived quickly, as well as News 12 Long Island and ABC 7 News to cover the incident. During coverage footage, multiple beachgoers can be seen surrounding the downed aircraft to ensure both passengers were safe and out of harm’s way.
However, this is not the first instance of a plane making an emergency landing on a local waterfront. It is also not the first time a Cessna 152 to be exact suffered the same fate. In 2016 Pilot Robert Keletii was also forced to make an emergency beach landing which occurred at the Sunken Meadow State Park, not far from Cedar Beach, where pilot Keletii and his training student escaped unharmed.
